The Baby Track (13 page)

Courtney touched her lips against Sarah’s soft downy cheek. She thought of the young woman who had given birth to this baby, who believed her child would be raised in a loving, secure home.
She will,
Courtney silently promised the unknown birth mother.
I’m Sarah’s mother now, and I’ll always love and protect her.

In the living room, Connor was staring hard at Nollier. “I don’t know why, but I think I believe you.” He was burning with questions. About Richard Tremaine, about his birth mother. Was she really the callous, amoral slut Dennis McKay had hinted that she was?

“I have no reason to lie to you,” Nollier said quietly. He glanced at his watch, a diamond-studded Rolex. “If you ever want to know the full story of your father and mother, which I’ll wager is quite different from the version McKay gave you, I’ll be glad to tell you everything I know. But, unfortunately, not now. I have to get back to the city for another appointment. Tell Mrs. Mason I’m sorry to miss her incomparable cake and coffee.”

“Nollier, why did you tell me all this?” Connor demanded, blocking his way.

“Because I want you to know why I’m willing to foot the bill for the entire adoption, if need be,” said Nollier. “You’re Richard’s son and I’ve always felt you got one helluva bum deal in life. When your wife told me the problems you’ve had trying to have a baby, then trying to adopt, I made up my mind to help you anyway I could. I didn’t want you to have to wait another day for a child, I wanted an
immediate
happy ending for you. Now there is one, at last. You have a sweetheart of a wife and a healthy new baby.”

He gave Connor’s shoulder an avuncular pat. “Why don’t you let me do one more thing and arrange a meeting with your father? Your real father, Richard Tremaine. It’s time you two met. I know how much he would—”

“No.” Connor shook his head. “Absolutely not.” Nollier sighed. “You’re more like him than you know. Cautious, controlled, willing to wait—until the golden moment to act is long past. But it’s your choice, Connor. I won’t pressure you—now. About the baby...”

Courtney walked into the living room, the baby in her arms. She would
not
allow Connor to give Sarah back to the attorney, even though their plan had collapsed.

“Ah, here is the lovely Courtney,” Nollier said smoothly as she entered. “I was just about to tell your husband that it will be necessary for you two to remain here in Shadyside Falls for at least a couple weeks with the baby while the adoption paperwork is being processed.”

“Why?” demanded Connor.

“It serves an archaic state residency requirement.” Nollier rolled his eyes heavenward. “I have extremely able people working for me, and we’ve managed to cut the ridiculous waiting periods required by tenacious bureaucrats—” “How do you manage that?” Connor interrupted. “Bribery?”

Nollier smiled. “You even have your father’s droll sense of humor, I see. To continue,” he went on smoothly, “my colleagues in the human services office cannot be persuaded to completely eliminate the residency requirement, even though it’s been drastically curtailed. My personal opinion is that these particular persons—originally Shady-side Falls natives—like the revenue the adoptive parents pour into the town during their stay here.”

“I’ll bet,” Connor muttered, wondering how many others in the town ran profitable “homes-away-from home” like the accommodating Mrs. Mason.

Nollier shrugged. “However, our couples don’t find the wait a great hardship. They spend a few carefree weeks here and leave with their child, the adoption legal and permanent.”

Mrs. Mason entered the living room carrying a wide silver tray loaded with cups of coffee and thick slices of cake.

“So sorry. I must run.” Wilson Nollier snatched his attache case and was out of the room before anyone could utter a protest.

“Always in such a hurry,” Mrs. Mason grumbled reprovingly. “Won’t you two sit down and—”

The baby opened her eyes and let out a small but unmistakable wail. “She might be wet or hungry,” Courtney said quickly. “Or maybe both. I’ll take her upstairs.” She disappeared from the room even faster than Wilson Nollier had.

“To be honest with you, Mrs. Mason, I couldn’t eat a piece of cake if my life depended on it.” Connor was the next to head out of the room.

Mrs. Mason watched him leave, then shrugged, sat down and dug her fork into the first piece of cake.

Connor watched Courtney change the baby’s diaper, then sit down on the bed and settle the infant in her arms with a bottle of milky-looking formula.

“We’re not staying, Gypsy. As soon as the baby is fed, you can hand her over to Mrs. Mason. We’ve blown our chance to nail Nollier, at least in this particular case, so there . is no reason for us to hang around here.”

“I’m
staying,” Courtney countered firmly. “I want to legally adopt Sarah.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Connor gasped. “You can’t adopt a baby!”

“Why not? Single people adopt all the time these days. I have enough money in my bank account to pay Nollier for the hospital expenses, I have a job and can support a child, and I’m confident I can be a good mother to my little Sarah.” She gazed down at the baby who was sucking the nipple greedily. A flood of maternal warmth filled her.

“Your little Sarah? You really have flipped! Courtney, have you forgotten why we came here in the first place? We^”

“I haven’t forgotten. The documentary will be made. True, there is nothing on the record we can use pertaining to Wilson Nollier, but we won’t have that information, anyway, no matter if we go or stay.”

“What about your brother and his wife?” Connor injected shrewdly. “How are Mark and Marianne going to feel when you waltz back to Washington with the baby you’ve adopted? They’ve been trying for years to adopt with no luck and then you find a child in one day!”

Courtney winced. He’d fired an effective volley there. She tried to think logically, not react emotionally. “It’s not as if Nollier will let Mark and Marianne adopt her. You know he won’t. The only reason why he gave us Sarah in the first place is because you’re—” she broke off abruptly.

“I’m what?” demanded Connor.

Courtney sighed. “I may as well admit it. I was eavesdropping the entire time, Connor. I know you’re Richard Tremaine’s son.”

“Oh, great! ” Connor sank down onto the bed beside her. Resting his elbows on his knees, he held his head in his hands. “Just great.”

“Don’t worry. I swear I won’t ever tell a soul.”

“I wasn’t worried that you’d hightail it to a phone and pass along the news to Kieran Kaufman.” Connor grimaced. “But I never wanted anyone else to know—” He halted in midsentence.

“This is one of those dramatic moments of truth,” Courtney said quietly. “You suddenly comprehend the kind of pain and embarrassment that your
fact-finding
has unleashed in other people’s lives. It could happen to you and to the Tremaines if some opportunistic snoop learns the truth.”    ,

He felt winded, as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. But admitting vulnerability—especially to a woman, especially to
her
—was anathema to him. He stood up and swaggered around the room a bit.

“What do I care if some cretin like Kaufman finds out I’m a Tremaine—how does that quaint euphemism for bastard go?—bom on the wrong side of the blanket? Actually it would enhance my own position. Think of all those sexy little fortune-hunters who’d chase me, hoping for a cut of the Tremaine loot. As for Richard Tremaine and his sons, well—”

“Connor, you can skip the hard-as-nails tough-guy act,” Courtney cut in sternly. “I’m not buying it. You care very much. If you’d wanted to hurt or embarrass the Tremaines you would have done it years ago. You don’t want the notoriety yourself, either.”

She gently lifted Sarah to her shoulder and rubbed her small back until the baby emitted a loud burp. The infant’s big, blue eyes widened in surprise at the sound. Courtney laughed in delight.

Connor turned to stare at the baby. “She belched like a drunken sailor,” he exclaimed, astonished. “How did something that little make a noise that big?”

“She’s a mighty mite.” Courtney smiled up at him. “Want to feed her?” she offered.

“No! And don’t think you can trick me into—into
bonding
with her and with you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of tricking you into anything. I simply asked if you wanted to feed the baby.”

“Aha, so you’ve switched tactics! Now you’re using the candid approach. You think being honest and upfront will disguise your intention to trap me into becoming a
nice little family,
”
he said, imitating Mrs. Mason’s drawl perfectly. “You’re trying every approach in the book to induce me to let down my guard, but your motive remains the same—to lure me into that cage marked marriage-and-family.”

He thought of the parents who’d raised him, Nina and Dennis McKay, whose detached, distant relationship with its underlying veil of hostility had defined marriage for him. He figured that the McKays must have started out in love at one point to have made it as far as the altar. They’d taken him in as an infant and gone on to have two daughters of their own, but it hadn’t worked and the whole family knew it. Dennis McKay had made frequent bitter jokes about marital entrapment; Nina McKay hadn’t verbalized her unhappiness, but it had been painfully obvious to all.

Connor had observed and made his own pledge not to delude himself into a situation he couldn’t get out of. He’d never come close to it... until now.

“No,” he reiterated more forcefully. “It won’t happen to me. I won’t let it.”

“And you said
I’d
flipped? You’re the one hatching stupid delusional plots, not me. Save your energy, Connor,” Courtney said coolly. “I’m not trying to lure anyone into any metaphorical cage. And I certainly don’t want a man who doesn’t want me.”

Which was true enough in theory, Courtney admitted glumly, but didn’t seem to be holding up too well in real life. She remembered those torrid moments in Connor’s arms, the way they’d lain together on this very bed----A sharp, sensual ache ripped through her.

Reflexively she lifted her head and found Connor watching her. Their gazes collided. She had a sinking feeling that her feelings were very much evident in her eyes.

“Anyway, what about Harcourt?” snapped Connor, tearing his eyes away from hers. He’d read the message in them and it took all of his considerable willpower to keep from going to her and taking her into his arms...

But he didn’t. He had some principles, after all, and he would not take another man’s woman the way his perfidious birth mother had latched onto another woman’s husband. He’d come close to doing exactly that earlier today, and he knew it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.

He gave his head a shake, clinging to that belief. He would
not
fall under her spell. But he couldn’t help asking, “How is Harcourt going to react to your instant motherhood?”

“He’ll undoubtedly wish me well,” Courtney replied at once. “Because Emery and I are friends, that’s all we’ve ever been. You’ve cooked up an imaginary affair between us in your mind, but that’s all it’s ever been, imaginary and in your mind.”

Connor gulped. So she was free. Available. Eminently eligible. She turned him on faster and harder than any woman he’d ever known, and she wanted him. Nobody would be hurt if they got together. There was no reason why they couldn’t—except for his own stubborn pledge to remain free and unencumbered from the ties that bind. For a split second he imagined himself taking that chance with Courtney.

But he couldn’t, he didn’t dare.

At war with himself, Connor turned and walked out the door. He’d used driving as an escape since the day he had received his license, and he resorted to it now. Connor climbed into his car and gunned the engine. He put in the master tape, a cassette tape he’d made of all his favorite songs, and turned up the volume. It was a great tape, and he felt a momentary pang of guilt for not producing it for Courtney when she’d asked for some music. But the songs on this tape reflected too much of him and the way he felt; an insightful person could learn way too much about him from listening. Courtney already knew too much about him.

He stepped on the accelerator and peeled away from the curb.

He replayed his conversation with Wilson Nollier in his mind, over and over again, despite his best attempts to shut it out. A mixture of shame and anger coursed through him, so mixed together that he couldn’t begin to separate them.
He’d been glad to hear his position as Richard Tremaine’s son validated!
Glad, after all these years of professing to loathe Tremaine. Did that mean he harbored some foolishly sentimental, hopeful and hopeless notion about being reunited with his real father some day? Connor blanched at the very notion.

And if that wasn’t difficult enough to deal with, Wilson Nollier, the man he’d reviled as a corrupt baby-seller, had turned out to have a decent, compassionate side, wanting to help an old friend’s son, even at his own financial expense. It was almost unbelievable and thoroughly disconcerting, something akin to hearing that Satan didn’t mind performing an occasional good deed, just for the hell of it.

Nollier’s own good deed had complicated things immensely, though. Courtney had fallen in love with the baby and planned to adopt her! And while part of him scorned her impulsive idealism, Connor admitted that another part admired her generosity and her loving, can-do spirit.

She
wasn’t the one driving around town, brooding and ambivalent, he noted wryly. She’d made the decision to keep the baby; she was taking care of her; and that was that. Courtney possessed the inner confidence to pull it off, that same inner confidence that enabled her to handle his temper, to keep his tendency to dominate from squashing her individuality. The flash of insight surprised him. He hadn’t known her long, but he felt like he knew her well.

She was a genuinely good person who deserved someone far better than himself, Connor acknowledged grimly. He was doing her a favor by keeping his distance. He’d always been uncomfortable around good girls; he felt he’d corrupt them if he were ever to become involved with them. He should stick with his own kind, what he deserved. He certainly didn’t want sweet, loving Courtney’s corruption on his conscience.